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HOUSTON -- Two residents of the International Space Station will conduct a pair of spacewalks in the coming weeks to prepare the Russian segment of the station for future assembly work. The activities will be broadcast live on NASA Television and previewed in a briefing originating from NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston on Thursday, June 4, at 8:30 a.m. CDT.

Expedition 20 Commander Gennady Padalka and Flight Engineer Mike Barratt will don Russian spacesuits June 5 for a spacewalk out of the Pirs docking compartment's airlock. NASA TV coverage of the spacewalk will begin at 1:15 a.m. Barratt and Padalka are expected to exit the airlock to begin their exterior work at 1:45 a.m. The spacewalk will prepare Pirs for the arrival of a new Russian module called the Mini-Research Module 2, or MRM2, which will be launched later this year on a Russian booster. The MRM2 will serve as an additional docking port for Russian vehicles. The spacewalk is planned to last five and a half hours.

On June 10, Padalka and Barratt will again don Russian suits and depressurize the transfer compartment between the Zvezda service module and the Zarya module. They will perform a one-hour interior spacewalk that will set the stage for the MRM2's launch and automated linkup. Television of the internal spacewalk is not expected, but NASA TV will broadcast live commentary beginning about 1:15 a.m. The internal depressurization of the station's Russian transfer compartment for Padalka and Barratt is expected to begin about 1:45 a.m.